


Laundry Day

by Kiiratam



Category: RWBY
Genre: Blake's mostly in control of her anxiety, Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff, Light Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:08:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21644206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: Dirty clothes, dirty minds. Doing laundry can help with one of those, at least.Takes place between Volumes 1 and 2. (My BMBLB fic index)
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 20
Kudos: 137





	1. Chapter 1

"Hey Blake, I'm taking the laundry down. Got anything?"

  
Looking up from _The Man with Two Souls II: The Man With Four Souls_ , Blake suddenly wished that she hadn't. Or didn't, really, but wished she could have had a bit more warning first.

  
_Don't stare, don't stare, look away before she sees where you're looking!_

  
Dropping her gaze from Yang, standing there in an unbelted bathrobe, Blake made a show of looking at her bed linens. "I, ummm... ...should probably change these."

  
_That was a really long pause. Yang's no dummy; she knows. She has to know._

  
Putting her book down without marking her place - _I can find where I was, it's no big deal_ \- Blake started stripping the sheets from her bed.

  
_I can't look at her. I really **want** to, but I can't. Why not? It's not like Yang's a prude. She's used to people looking. She wants people to look; look at the outfits she wears._

  
_No no no, that's the kind of excuse He would make. Always excusing His choices, mitigating them, making them other people's fault._

  
_Usually mine._

  
_Breathe in, hold it, breathe out._

  
_I won't be Him._

  
Yang had been talking. Blake tried to catch up. 

  
"-Ruby's too. I know I probably shouldn't, but some habits die hard." Yang was on the other side of the room, taking the sheets off of Ruby's bed, making the whole thing sway.

  
Blake got all of her linens piled up. She set Fitzbattleaxe on her shelf; the little book could go back under her pillow later. Picking up her blanket, she gave it an experimental sniff - still fresh. Yang had set the hamper in the middle of the room, and Blake dumped everything into it, along with a few stockings that had been lurked among her books, like eels in a reef.

  
Looking at the top bunk, Blake tried to shake an extra-staticky stocking free from her hand. "Do you want me to get yours?"

  
Pulling the pillowcase off of Ruby's pillow, Yang stared at it. "I, uh, just changed them."

  
Blake didn't see anything embarrassing about that. It wasn't like she was Weiss, with a daily cleaning checklist. But... Yang was actually blushing. 

  
_...She must have something hidden up there._

  
_I don't need to know. Even if Yang does borrow my smutty books. Everyone is allowed their privacy. Everyone._

  
_And really, I just have a book of poetry under my pillow. It's not even smutty poetry!_

  
As if eager to prove her wrong, a fragment of one of Fitzbattleaxe's poems sprang to mind:

'On soft beds you satisfied your passion.  
And there was no dance,  
no holy place  
from which we were absent.'

_...It's mostly not smutty poetry. Just personal. I want to keep it close._

  
_So what does Yang want to keep close?_

  
Yang was stuffing Ruby's sheets into the hamper, bulking out the heavy fabric of the bag. She pulled the tie shut, and swung the bag over her shoulder. "Want to come on a dangerous mission with me? They say that only a few have returned from-" Yang paused for dramatic effect. "-the basement."

  
_I already lost my place in my book. And I really want to know what Yang's hiding. I should go. I don't trust myself with this curiosity._

  
"Sure."

  
Yang grabbed her bookbag. "I usually just do some homework while I'm waiting."

  
"Good plan." Blake had those maps to annotate for Stealth & Security, and she'd been putting them off. And they were due tomorrow, and she, frankly, had a deep terror of disappointing Professor Tauros. Not because of his name - though that didn't help - but because he'd probably be very understanding and let her make it up, and Blake _knew_ that if she was given any slack, she'd _definitely_ manage to tie a noose for herself, and-

  
_Breathe in, hold it, breathe out._

  
Blake grabbed the sheaf of maps and her favorite pen, turning to face Yang.

  
Who still had an open bathrobe, and now she had her bookbag and the laundry bag slung over her shoulders, and it was just pulling the bathrobe _open_ , and Yang must be down the bottom of her wardrobe, because that wasn't her normal sports bra, but something red and lacy and-

  
Blake set her homework down and hurried over to Yang, sure her face was the same color as Yang's bra. And Yang just looked at her, smiling just a little bit, maybe a little confused as Blake came closer and closer and-

  
Forcing herself to act calm, Blake adjusted Yang's bathrobe, pulling it closed, and tying the belt around her waist.

  
"Uhhh?" Yang tilted her head to the side. "Was I-"

  
Fortunately for Blake, at least part of her brain had been thinking about something other than how nice Yang's hair smelled, and immortalizing the barest touch of Blake's knuckle to Yang's bra, and how much she wanted to lick Yang's abs- She pointed towards the hallway. "Cardin's in the hall."

  
"Oh. Good reason."

  
Blake retrieved her homework, and hurried past Yang to the door, pulling it open. At least she understood how she felt about Cardin.


	2. Chapter 2

"Did they deliberately make it creepy down here?" Blake trailed in Yang's wake, looking at the bare concrete walls and floor of the basement. The lights were just widely spaced enough that it kept ruining her night vision, and the echoes bounced around oddly, like the basement was bigger than it looked.

  
"And you thought I was joking about people not coming back." Yang turned, facing a dull red door. "Could you get that?" Her hands were holding the bag of laundry and her bookbag.

  
Blake shuffled her bundle of maps under one arm, and turned the handle of the door, pushing it open. And flinched as a horrifying shriek of metal sounded.

  
"I really ought to grab Ruby's oil can and do something about that." Yang entered the dark room, and flipped the light switch with her elbow. "Oh, hi Fox."

  
Coco's team-mate lifted his head from the table he'd been napping on, and stood up, yawning and stretching.

  
Blake knew there wasn't any reason for Fox to bother switching the lights on. It wasn't like it mattered to him. She was glad Yang had gone in first, though. This place had her a little jumpy.

  
Yang dropped her bookbag on the table, and hauled the laundry over the washing machines. Blake put her maps down and hurried over to help. And Fox, finally all stretched out, padded over to a dryer and started unloading it into a laundry basket. Blake didn't know why or how he had a whole load full of socks, but Fox wasn't exactly chatty. Maybe she'd ask Velvet, if she remembered.

  
The two of them were sorting between lights and darks. Which, practically, meant Ruby's stuff in one machine, Yang and Weiss' in the other, and Blake's split between them. Apart from their uniforms, of course.

  
Fox waved vaguely in their direction, hefted his laundry, and wandered off, swinging the door shut behind him. The door shrieked, and closed with a sound like the sky cracking.

  
_Stop it. It's a laundry room. Not a murder closet._

  
The silence was oppressive, so Blake asked, "Are you usually down here alone?"

  
Yang shrugged. "Close enough. For some reason, everyone else I see doing laundry is one of the quiet ones. Fox, Ren, Velvet sometimes - actually, pretty much all of CFVY except Coco."

  
The walls added a reverb to Yang's voice. It was a little disconcerting, almost like a chorus from the shadows.

  
"It's not like this place is friendly to conversation." _Or the living._ Blake undid a knot in someone's tie, and tossed it in the washer.

  
"No kidding. But it is nice and quiet. No distractions around. Can't even get scroll reception."

  
"Seriously? " Blake pulled out her scroll to check. True to Yang's word, nothing.

  
_It could be a laundry room **and** a murder closet._

  
She tried not to think about that too much as they finished sorting the laundry. Yang added the detergent, and was about to close the lids when she sighed.

  
"What is it?" Blake had started to turn away, to get started on her homework, but something about Yang's sigh caught her ears.

  
"I don't how I did it, but there's dirt on my sleeves. Maybe I didn't brush my riding jacket off? " She shrugged. "Oh well." And-

  
Blake literally felt time slow down, watching as Yang ever so carefully unknotted the belt of her bathrobe, and slipped out of it. Stuffed it into the washing machine, closed the lids, and started them. All with a faint look of annoyance on her face.

  
Which just left Blake and Yang. In the laundry room. Together. For a wash cycle and a dry cycle - call it an hour and a half, two hours. With Yang in a lacy red bra and plain black panties. And if time stayed like this, it would feel like an entire day.

  
Blake made herself turn back to her maps, spreading them out as she thought.

  
It was a pity about the whole murder closet-basement. That was definitely the biggest downside. Probably. And so much for no distractions down here. Blake didn't think she was going to be able to focus on her homework very well.

  
_I've got to stop running away from this. Trying to avoid figuring out how I feel._

  
That Yang's underwear didn't match bothered her more than she thought it would. Especially when Blake didn't care to match her underwear most days. Like today. It wasn't like she was Weiss, with a rigorous schedule. But Blake also didn't parade around in her underwear!

  
'Parade around' in the basement room with no windows and one door, where she had expected to be alone. Yang had sat down at the table, her chair scrapping as she schooched it in. And she was digging in her bookbag, pulling out homework.

  
_I should strip down too. So Yang isn't the only one._

  
_Or I could absolutely not do that. What even am I thinking?_

  
_...The map's upside-down._

  
Blake resisted the urge to shoot a furtive eye at Yang, and spun the map in front of her around. She readied her pen, and started looking for holes in the security system.

  
_Why did Yang's bra have to be all lace? And why was it red? Red wasn't really Yang's color._

  
_...Apart from her eyes, sometimes. But Blake wasn't sure if Angry, Super-charged Yang **was** Yang._

  
Even in her own head, that sounded wrong, and she wanted to apologize to Yang for it. Because that wouldn't confuse her at all. But... Yang in the throes of her Semblance scared her.

  
_That's not fair to her. She's not Him. And He didn't even get angry when he used His Semblance! ...Just at other times._

  
_Breathe in, hold it, breathe out._

  
Blake marked out a gap in the security camera coverage.

  
_Breathe in, hold it, breathe out._

  
_Apart from the school plaid, I've never seen Yang in red. I wonder why?_

  
_I **could** just ask._

  
_That won't sound like an interrogation at all, I'm sure Yang just **loves** to discuss her choice in undergarments with anyone who passes by._

  
_We're room mates. Team mates. She doesn't have to answer if she doesn't want to._

  
"Hey, Yang?" Blake had made it this far. She didn't want to risk looking up and lose her train of thought. "I usually don't see you wearing red... " She wasn't sure how to actually turn that into a question, but-

  
"Oh. Yeah." -Yang wasn't a dummy. She could figure it out. "So, funny story..."

  
Blake braced herself.

  
"At Signal, someone thought it would be _hilarious_ to send me a heart-shaped Valentine made out of a bra. Still not sure how they knew my size, or if they just got lucky. But yeah, salacious note and chocolate inside the cups, the whole thing held together with red plastic-wrap..."

  
Blake frowned. That just sounded kind of creepy to her.

  
"But hey, free bra. It's not bad, but, yeah, not really my color, so I keep it mostly to have a spare."

  
She needed to say _something_ in response. "Oh." 

  
_Absolutely **brilliant** , good job, me. All those books really help your communication skills._

  
That door only had a latch-key-lock. That was either a tremendous oversight, or a trap. She made a note. And there was another hole in the security cameras.

  
"Do _you_ have any exciting underwear stories? I don't want to be the only one."

  
Blake kept herself from thinking about anything before her time at Beacon, focusing on her map. _Why were the walls so thick there?_

  
"Oh, heck." Something must have showed, because the bantering tone dropped out of Yang's voice. And her next words had a slightly frantic edge. "Ummm, what homework are you working on?!" She pushed her chair back and leaned forward over the table, intently looking over Blake's maps.

  
_...I think she may eventually want a response. As soon as I can remember what her question was. And what my name is. And think of something other than how much I want to be red lace at the moment._

  
Clawing her way back to full awareness, Blake answered the last question she remembered hearing. "Just my dad's face when he realized I was wearing training bras. It was... complex. I thought it was really funny."

  
"Oh. Um." Blake managed to look at Yang's face, saw the same sort of mingled emotions, anxiousness and amusement, admiration and caution. "Sounds like when my dad saw me in a bikini for the first time. It took him a minute, and then he just said 'new swimsuit?' like he was being strangled. And he's never said anything else about it."

  
_It's a good day. I can touch on old memories without getting overwhelmed. I just have to be careful._

  
_Being around Yang helps. She'll help me if I need it. Even if I can't ask. But not oppressive, not smothering._

  
Blake finally registered Yang's other question. "And, uh, annotating maps for Stealth & Security. Finding weak points." She put a rueful tone in her voice. "Sorry, kind of dumb today."

  
"I didn't think. It's my fault." 

  
That just hung in the air, as Yang took her spot back on the other side of the table. And went back to working on her own homework, glancing up every so often.

  
The washers finally finished filling, and started to spin. The noise wasn't as bad as Blake had been expecting. Of course, _where_ the noises were vanishing to, instead of bouncing around the laundry room...

  
_I can't figure Yang out. Is she try to seduce me? Or does she just not care if people see her in her underwear? Or did she just actually want to get her bathrobe clean, and not really care if I was here or not?_

  
_If she just wanted to get into my pants, she's being awfully patient about it. And putting up with more of my damages than I'd expect. But she keeps doing stuff like this, and I can't figure out if they're just accidents, or Yang is showing off for me, or-_

  
_Oh. I'm **still** an idiot._

  
_I keep cracking in front of her. Showing off my scars, even if I don't mean to._

  
_And she doesn't have scars like mine._

  
_But she wants me to be comfortable. So she's trying to be vulnerable. And, well, it's hard to get more vulnerable than being half-naked. Or completely naked, since her towels keep falling off._

  
_...Is she doing it on purpose? Or is she just doing this by intuition, putting herself into positions where things like this can happen?_

  
_Does it really matter? She's trying to keep things level between us. Conscious or not, she keeps doing it._

  
_Give her something back. Let her know that she's appreciated._

  
"So, the follow-up to this assignment is going out to all these places. Comparing the plans and the reality." Blake wasn't sure how interested Yang really was, but she'd put her pen down and was looking at Blake, smiling faintly. "And the next assignment is making our own maps, just from wandering around somewhere. Learning to keep a good mental map."

  
Yang nodded. "Ruby and I did something like that for a game. One of us would make a map, and the other would try to figure it out. Ruby was better at it than me - making them and solving them. She'd throw in sloping passages, and sneak in secret doors..." She snorted. "If you ever want help with that, I guess, Ruby would probably love it."

  
"Okay." _Ugggggh, why am I so bad at having a conversation?_ "What are you doing?" _Pretend you remember how to talk to people._

  
"Just an essay for Port on Apocritas."

  
"Those freaky parasitic wasp Grimm?"

  
"Yeah. They're not much danger to anyone with an active Aura, but everyone else... I'm trying to figure out how bad an outbreak can get." She tapped her pen. "And how best to stop them." Yang paused. "Actually... it's more a social issue, so can I ask you some questions? Since you know more about all the systemic stuff?"

  
 _It'll be a nice change, using my old White Fang experience._ "Ask away." _I'm just going to try not to stare at you. ...Too much. I don't think I'm going to be avoid it entirely._

  
_And I don't think I'd want to._

  
_Pretty._

**Author's Note:**

> Sapphire FitzBattleaxe is, and remains, Sappho of Lesbos. Translator is [Julia Dubnoff](https://www.uh.edu/~cldue/texts/sappho.html).


End file.
